The Thursday Night Men (24 page)

Unable to justify himself, he left the room without looking at Mia and sought refuge under the mysterious canopy, the use of which he might have just discovered: a space where he could be left the hell alone.

As a rule, Philippe knew how to stave off reminiscences of his former life, but this evening he’d been driven to the brink by a birdbrain who reproached him for having betrayed his own self, and he could not help but remember the little Grosjean he once was, in a public school in the outskirts of Paris; how he questioned everything. Nothing back then set him apart from any of the other boys, other than the unvoiced intuition that throughout his life it would be as hard for him to obey orders as it would be to give them. And that, already, his spiritual imaginings would provide a far better refuge than any tree house could.

In the beginning there was Madame Lagirarde. The good Madame Lagirarde, who assigned analysis that was far too difficult for her eight-year-old pupils. She liked nothing better than to ask questions which children of that age were quite incapable of answering, as if to console herself for being forty.
Can one of you tell me why the child in the poem is listening to the rain from deep within the cellar?
Answers came thick and fast, each one more banal than the next. Little Grosjean sat cogitating like a devil:
rain + cellar = . . . ?
There was surely an explanation to justify the entire poem, otherwise what would be the point of so much languor, cold, fear?
Rain + cellar = war!
The stunned, almost annoyed look on Madame Lagirarde’s face was worth far more than any good grade.

Back then, they still played cowboys and Indians in the schoolyard during recess. But little Grosjean did not give himself a choice: he would be an Indian, even if it meant dying from a paleface’s bullets.

And then there was Nathalie Brisefert and her budding breasts, which he glimpsed by chance one day on opening the wrong door during a medical examination. The temptation to boast about it to his pals had been great, but, after a night’s careful reflection little Grosjean preferred to bind himself to Nathalie through the secret.
What one says belongs to others. What one keeps silent is for eternity.

And how could he ever live down the shame of not being able to climb up the tightrope? Hanging there, halfway up, petrified, his arms drained, his bladder bursting. That’s all it took to be excluded from the gang of tough kids and find himself relegated to the clan of weaklings. From then on, all he could think was that one day he would get to the top, and leave those who thought they were so strong far below.

Even more marginal than little Grosjean: Michel Guilan, known as the Fool. He was frequently absent, because he had leukemia.
We need a volunteer to take him his homework. Shall I choose someone at random?
An even greater misfortune had befallen the Fool: he had no television! The Fool didn’t care: he had all sixteen volumes of the
Tout l’Univers
encyclopedia. Little Grosjean lost his bearings: was the Fool really such a fool?

And then there was the unforgettable day, two years later, when Madame Dourçat fainted. They could see her underpants. Since there were no girls in the class, none of the boys wanted to go for help: let the show go on. Little Grosjean pulled her skirt down over her thighs and went to notify one of the cleaners.
My hand brushed against Madame Dourçat’s stockings and I saved her life. I am a man.

On Wednesday evenings, Monsieur and Madame Grosjean watched the circus program on television. Little Philippe hated the circus: the clowns were trying too hard to make him laugh, the trapeze artists who were so good at climbing up the tightrope left him indifferent, and the spectacle of the elephants in tutus appalled him. He used the time to read the newspaper; he didn’t understand a great deal, other than that he couldn’t grow up fast enough.

And one fine morning, a revelation: everyone dies someday.
Finally a logical explanation for the fact that man created God in his image.

Filled with nostalgia, Philippe wondered whether he had become Saint-Jean thanks to one of these tiny revelations, or whether, come what may, he would have followed his natural inclination to deconstruct the workings of the mind, in order to put them back together again, according to his mood.

To erase Maud’s loathsome betrayal and forget Agnieszka’s distress, Yves sought out Céline’s passion. On the telephone she displayed the same impatience as her client, which he took as the promise of a night without end. All day long, Yves compiled his little inventory of Céline’s bodily delights, her fantasy, and her furor as well, the most intense he had ever known. He was already looking forward to the games they would play, innocently perverse but genuinely rough. While with Maud he satisfied his class fantasies, with Céline he had very different fantasies that enabled him to live out his desire to dominate. Céline could go from the female in heat to the shameless bitch who needs a scolding, then she’d shift to the ancillary script of the naughty chambermaid, ever attentive to her master’s bidding. Tonight he would be the satyr, and she his captive.

When he opened the door Yves saw in her expression a hitherto unknown gravity. Dressed in a dull skirt and a threadbare jacket, she sat on the arm of the chair and declined the drink Yves offered her.

“I’m late.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“With my period.”

“I see, but what does that have to do with me?”

She didn’t answer at once.

“We’ve only ever had safe sex.”

“Except once.”

He looked at her, surprised.

“On the first of May. Remember, you said,
Do you work when it’s a public holiday celebrating laboring men and women?”

“I don’t recall.”

“You should, though, it was the night of the
pussy shots.
”

How could he forget their binge? With the right glass and a few contortions, he’d perfected a very particular way of knocking back shots of vodka from between Céline’s thighs.

“You were so drunk that you put the condom on any old way, and when I woke up it slid out from between my legs.”

Suddenly drained of all strength, Yves clutched at blurred images—him on his knees with Céline’s open sex streaming with alcohol, then the two of them bumping into the furniture on their way to the bed, then nothing, total blackout.

“I’m still only just late,” she said, seeing how defeated he looked.

“Have you done the test?”

“I was waiting to talk to you about it before going to the pharmacy.”

“I wasn’t referring to that test.”

Quicker than any other feeling, than any logic or caution: fear. The abyss opening at the feet of a terrified man. All of a sudden, Céline was no longer a wicked partner arousing his senses. She had not even had time to revert to being a woman like any other, possibly expecting a happy event. She was nothing but a whore who serviced countless men after they’d been sticking their dick god knows where. The poisoned mistress. High risk in person. But what good would it do to look for the culprit, when for months he was the one who’d been playing with fire, the fire all those women had lit in him. How many hundreds of times had he escaped death? Would his punishment not come sooner or later, practically heralded, ineluctable? Yves abruptly left the present day to enter the world of nightmares. His living room stank of death. Céline’s voice a bitter rattle. His whisky tasted of gall. Before the floor fell away beneath his feet he tried in vain to cling to some scientific hope.
Maybe you haven’t been contaminated. People don’t die of it anymore. How many weeks since the first of May?

How luminous life had seemed, only two minutes earlier.

“I haven’t passed on any diseases, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I have regular checkups, the last one only ten days ago and we haven’t seen each other since.”

He could not help but give a silly smile, reassured by Céline’s sudden indignation. The relief he felt made his ordinary little misfortunes seem relative. How could he forget so often that he was happy, privileged, and still young? The future could start all over.

“I know it’s absurd, but I don’t want to be alone when I read the result of the pregnancy test.”

What was she talking about, already? Oh, yes, about life. Yves had just stared death in the face and there she was talking to him about some hypothetical life to come. And her tone, so ridiculous, so solemn! So much drama in her pathetic
I’m late.
Yves had to keep from saying,
Those are the risks of the job
, merely replying, “Aren’t you on the pill?”

“I use a condom one hundred percent of the time. The risk was infinitesimal.”

“So what do you plan to do?”

“Take the test, first, and then . . . ”

“And then what?”

“And then I’ll see.”

“What will you see, shit, make yourself clear.”

“It might be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for for so long.”

“Are you telling me you won’t necessarily have an abortion?”

“A kid might be the answer.”

“The answer to what, for Christ’s sake?”

Yves was treated to a tirade with one convoluted, contradictory argument leading to another. While she never said outright that she wanted a child, Céline was wondering whether this would not be her chance to
stop being a whore
and
change her life.
The prospect of bringing a little creature into the world and raising it had not been taken into account; only her own revolution mattered, her new projects. Before the birth she would have time to take the plunge, to do what only yesterday she had dreaded, to set up a ceramics studio with an associate, get back in touch with former contacts, work with clay again, invent new shapes, design a range, her own line. At the end of her exalted, long-winded speech, the issue was no longer a test, or the responsibilities of pregnancy, but the design she would use to conquer the world. Yves understood the extent to which this late arrival of her period was a pretext, how Céline was suffering from having made such a mistake with her career—what was she thinking, to sell her body when all she wanted was to make teacups?—but was that any reason, when he’d only narrowly escaped certain death, to get him involved in a destiny that was not his own?

“Just tell me how much you want me to be involved, in case you insist on keeping it.”

“If I’d gotten pregnant because of any other man’s doings, I’d get rid of it, for sure. You are the only one of my clients I respect, because you’re the only one who listens to me and encourages me. It’s no coincidence that we get along so well in bed. I want to be able to tell my kid that his dad is a nice guy. I’m not asking you to recognize him or take care of him. I want you to know that if this child exists, every time he says the word ‘daddy’ he’ll be talking about you. If the child exists you will know that someone, somewhere has your genes. That he’ll be sure to ask for you. That he’ll be waiting for you.”

“What do you mean by
going away
?”

“I’m out of here. Isn’t that what you wanted more than anything?”

“Why leave, now that . . . ”

Denis hesitated, for fear of giving his whole self away in one sentence. Of opening a door too wide, too quickly, when it was still only ajar. But because he wanted to avoid a declaration at all cost, he yielded to the irony they were comfortably sharing after several weeks of querulously close company.

“Now that you’ve left the sofa for my bed.”

“I have other ambitions in life, Denis Benitez.”

“What is stopping you being ambitious by my side? I’m not the kind of guy who’s afraid his woman might cast a shadow over him.”

“Would you have the heart to deprive me of all the adventures waiting for me all around the world?”

“And wouldn’t a life together be an adventure?”

It was her turn to hesitate, and she gave him a look that said she preferred to refrain from a long confession—painful, no doubt, but with a wealth of wisdom and lessons. Not to prolong an awkward moment, she kissed Denis’s cheek with infinite tenderness. In that moment he understood that Marie-Jeanne Pereyres was about to leave his life the way she had entered it, without a word of explanation, and when
she
decided to.

Mia awoke in the middle of the night from a too-brief sleep. She looked for Philippe in the bed, and then in the rest of the villa, and finally found him under the canopy where he spent all his time. The night before, he had decreed that this space that served no particular purpose would henceforth be a sort of study for thinking, a means of extricating himself from spatiotemporality in order to regain his mental privacy at last. He had settled there with his notebook and a jug of water, and was reinventing himself as a modern Diogenes. Mia was not allowed within the confines of his space. Philippe liked signaling to her in this way that while the entire island might belong to her, these forty square feet would remain out of bounds.

She found him asleep, woke him with a kiss, and led him back to bed, eager to efface their resentment and give their dying idyll one last chance. The method had already proven effective in the past. But this need of theirs to embrace in order to banish their bitterness quickly faded in favor of a dreary routine. Philippe lingered over foreplay, which gave him time to feel comfortable with her again, but he made Mia ill at ease with his excessive tenderness. She knew when to arch her back in an obscene position that Philippe could not possibly resist, as she offered up her entire intimate self to his gaze in a single curve. He in turn brandished his sex in Mia’s face; she grabbed it to make it stiffen even more. Then he came inside her, moving in and out, regularly, unvaryingly, depriving Mia of any divine slowness or firm acceleration. She eventually disrupted the rhythm by abruptly turning around, which left Philippe less range. She sat astride him, rode him with a fervor he did not share but which did have the advantage—the only one—of restraining his excitement. Just then he recalled the way Juliette, when adopting the same position, would press her knees against her chest, forming a block of flesh that rested entirely upon her lover’s erect member—this gave Philippe the irresistible sensation of being a pivot for another body. Mia preferred to express herself through speech but, oddly enough, in English, which gave Philippe the awkward impression he had been replaced, in turn, by an imaginary partner—an Irish bass player, an American actor, or even worse. Sooner or later he ejaculated and, as was the case each time, the word “reductive” went through his mind, like some Pavlovian reflex. And it had been like this ever since that memorable evening when Mia, surprised that Philippe had ejaculated inside her and not on her, had said, “Ronnie, my ex, always withdrew before and splattered my belly.”